I am convinced by the argument of Larry and others that it is important
that a URI registry reflect the real & messy world as far as possible.
I remain convinced as well that there must be provisions for orderly
promotion of demonstrably-useful schemes, and that the business cases
for such schemes, as well as good network practices, require assured
unique tokens.
I believe that both of these requirements can be met by adding an
additional status category to the three described in 2717/18-bis. A
high level summary of these categories follows:
Proposed status categories for a URI Scheme registry
Permanent
Documented by Standards Track RFC
Full Technical Review
Unique token assured
Revision authority rests with IETF
New candidate schemes must have demonstrated usefulness as a
Provisional scheme prior to technical review
Provisional
Documented by at least an Informational RFC
Provisional technical review required (details and scope open to
discussion)
Revision authority rests with author or designated organization
Registration records openly annotatable (wiki-like public comment)
Unique token assured
Tokens may be recycled after a period of dormancy
Vernacular (wild-type)
Documentation unspecified (none | author-managed |
community-managed...)
Registration record may be created by author or third party
Registration records openly annotatable (wiki-like public comment)
No assurance of unique token
Tokens may be recycled after a period of dormancy
Historic
Deprecated or superceded schemes, as designated by the IETF
recyclability of token an open question [would one ever want to
allow, gopher: to re-emerge?]
[unregistered]
There are always likely to be schemes in development or use that no
one has registered. Such schemes may be registered as Vernacular
schemes by anyone as they emerge.